Shelter (1994) by Jayne Anne Philips Read Free Book Online

the surface of the foliage, shadows fluttered. The shadows rose higher and took form, scraps of black paper, shaken angrily, gaining the air in spasms.
    "
Look
at them," Cap whispered.
    For an instant, naked, Lenny was paralyzed with surprise. Her skin tingled as though a veil had been pulled across her flesh. The bats moved, their flight inherently terrifying in its speed, its inhuman tremor. The night looked navy blue, round as a deep plate. The bats were soot and remnants, emitting the silent screams of their community. Then pieces of the mosaic dropped suddenly and swooped, lifted, and were gone, flown back over Highest to the north.
    Dimly, Lenny heard Cap murmuring and felt her wrist wetted and warmed. Cap held it in her mouth as a dog holds damaged prey, teeth resting on the flesh just hard enough to make an impression. Instinctively, Lenny kicked and swung, felt herself released, Cap's misplaced slap at her face landing on her neck. Cap left her hand there and grasped Lenny's hair. "Take it easy, Lenore, I was joking. They're just bats."
    "Well, I never saw them before," Lenny spat back. "I've never seen them, they're not like birds at all, they're horrible."
    "OK, OK, forget you saw them. Who said they were like birds? They're vermin."
    "Oh, be quiet. Can't you stop showing me things? Leave me alone."
    "Sure thing." Cap hissed the words and rose from the floor in one movement. Her bed creaked when she sat, then she sighed, betraying herself.
    Listening, Lenny was frightened again. "Let's go, let's go down the mountain. I can't sleep now because of you. You have to come too."
    "What?"
    "No one will even know we left. We can go down here, right off the edge of the tent, circle around to the woods trail, and go down to Turtle Hole. We can swim and be back in an hour."
    "Lenny, I don't want to put my clothes back on and walk all the way down there."
    "Yes you do. I can tell you do."
    "I'll only do it," Cap said, "if you go just as you are now."
    "Don't be dumb. The brush off this way is full of briars."
    "All right. But once we get on the trail, you have to take off everything but your shoes." Already, Cap was putting on her clothes, fighting her way into a T-shirt.
    Lenny tossed her head defiantly, like at home, even though no one was watching. She found her shorts on the floor and pulled them on. "Fine," she said, "I don't care. There's no one on the trail. But when we get to the water, you have to go in too. Both of us."
    "Oh, in that mud bottom," Cap said, "when you can even touch the bottom! You sink to your ankles ... I'll have to tread water, I can't bear it!" She stage-whispered, her Natasha accent drunkenly precise.
    Zippers, tying of laces, double knots at the ends, no slipping in the darkest dark of Highest trail. Cap opened the footlocker to find the flashlight but Lenny shushed her and closed the heavy lid—no light, she signaled, cat's eyes, night vision, see in the tunnel, radar, laser light—anyway, someone would see a flashlight beam, suddenly cutting across the trail.
    "You first." Cap motioned toward the edge.
    They squatted and Lenny was over first. The slender pole, central support propping the tent floor, smelled of dirt. The rubber soles of Lenny's sneakers slowed her short descent and when she was down, she looked up. Peculiar feeling, like spying under someone's secret room; the board floor with its wide slats showed space between the lengths, as though the ground illuminated upward.
    Exhilarated, Lenny turned and ran, lifting her knees high to skirt the briars, plundering the smell and the wetness. Grasses ripped as she moved. Little by little, she could see. She touched with her fingertips the wet umbrellaed tops of Queen Anne's lace, heard the briars catch at her, didn't feel them. Ahead, the furzy towering shapes of the trees sheltered Highest trail, a few hundred feet down from the tents. All the rest were sleeping! And this was better than a dream. Lenny gained the trail and stopped. She